AMD is Doing Away with “ATI” Branding

See that ATI logo at the bottom of this post? Well, get your fill now, because pretty soon, those bubbly three letters are going to be replaced with “AMD” or perhaps even nothing at all. That’s right, after more than four years since its acquisition of one of the last Canadian companies I could brag about, ATI, AMD is planning to rid the name, and soon.

Although the removal of the ATI branding has been long-rumored, it’s a decision that AMD didn’t take lightly. After all, in the graphics card scheme of things, there are some, ahem, intense fans, and just because someone is a fan of ATI doesn’t necessarily mean that they are a fan of AMD. But according to the company’s research, people actually trusted AMD’s own products more when they realized that the two companies were connected.

There are other reasons for AMD’s decision as well, with the main one no doubt being that a simple structure is the best structure, because customers will have an easier time realizing the fact that the companies are one, and from AMD’s standpoint, if a customer prefers ATI graphics cards, they will likely see more appeal in its processors, and vice versa.

With AMD’s upcoming Fusion designs as well, merging AMD’s name with ATI’s seems to be the most common-sense path to take. Again, it’s simplicity all around, and as it is even today, many people already realize that ATI is under AMD, so the need for a “sub-company” seems to be pointless. After all, the merger happened over four years ago, and the change seemed inevitable.

Still, even if the eventual removal of the ATI branding seemed to be a sure thing, it’s still a  bit sad to see it go. At AMD’s graphics card division, the roots are still there, but many of us chose between ATI and NVIDIA for years and years, and now it’s going to be a decision between AMD and NVIDIA. It might take a little getting used to, but in reality, not much is actually going to change in the grand scheme.

Despite the protest and sideline evaluations, good has come from the acquisition. The most noticeable is the fact that AMD’s chipset business is the strongest it has ever been. AMD branded chipsets and integrated graphics are actually very good. And later this year, AMD will ship its first Fusion APUs (single die CPU/GPU): Ontario using Bobcat cores and an AMD GPU. Ontario will be the first tangible example of direct AMD/ATI collaboration since the acquisition.